What one word would your friends use to describe you?

It’s one of those damnable interview questions that I don’t know about you but I definitely stumble over – how the heck would they describe me?  I tend to fumble around for a bit before mumbling something about ‘maybe a good listener?’ and tail off with some words about being ‘fun to hang out with’.  Miserable stuff.

So the other day I actually did it – I asked a few friends what one word they’d use to describe me.  They are my friends so they said some lovely lovely things (thanks friends!) but there was one word, one description I was kinda looking for because it’s really the thing I wanted to talk about in this post.

The closest anyone came was: “Industrious” 

24/7 Overload 

It’s a nice word isn’t it?  Bit Victorian perhaps.  But a good word.  A solid word.  A word you can trust to ‘get things done’. 

It is also, quite possibly, a word that describes the very worst part of myself; that bit that is ALWAYS doing stuff, ALWAYS busy. 

One of the things I often wonder is what it’s like to not be busy?  What is it like (and please, feel free to comment below with any answers you might have….) to come home at the end of a day, flick the kettle on and I think “Oooh, dunno what to do with myself tonight”? 

Whilst I think most of us are to some extent are suffering from a 24/7 culture overload I think, for me at least, it would be wrong to blame ‘the world in which I find myself’ entirely.  It would feel the same as blaming the existence of cigarettes for the fact I smoke (I don’t by the way, but I have been a smoker in the past).

There is always a choice made in starting something and there is always a choice to make in opting out of any addictive habitual cycle.

A fellow student on the MA and I recently jointly made a (frankly exhausted) vow to NOT rush into the next big thing life-wise.

And yet.  Only yesterday I caught myself thinking about how once this exam is over (less than a week to go….) and coursework submitted (this time next week…) I’ll suddenly be free of the constraints that come as standard with an MA. 

Now.  Was my mind wallowing in the warm shallows of how wonderful it might be to experience the dolce far niente, the infamous Italian ‘sweetness of doing nothing’?  Was it even gasping grateful gulps of joy at the time suddenly available to let the stories that have been running round in my head out and onto the page finally after months of being penned up (excuse the pun…)?

Don’t be ridiculous.  Mostly I was thinking of the day trips I could do to catch up again with friends and family; jobs I could do; gifts I could make for people; things I could do to best support the mad scientist; new and exciting sporting ventures.  You know the sort of stuff…

The list escalated from there to be honest and it was only thanks to the remembrance of that conversation with my MA classmate that I managed to catch myself in the apparently compulsive act of quadruple booking myself.

What my soul longs for most days is some solitude and reflective time but I battle endlessly with a sense of guilt if I am anything other than (i) busy with work/study or (ii) busy with social. The truth is I have an over-developed tendency to swing interchangeably from one busy-ness to the other.

I’ve found myself asking; ‘when is a good time to give up being busy?'  As any addict will tell you, there’s NEVER a good time.

You can spend a huge amount of time navel-gazing to work out why you’re like this and what the triggers are.  But I suspect in the long run it’s a case of committing to quitting. What worked for me with giving up smoking was going cold turkey and just, frankly, not smoking.

So, the busy-ness detox started this weekend.  The mad scientist and I went to his family’s farm in Sussex. 

Work got done.  Walks in the bluebell woods happened.  More work got done.  I finished my reading-for-pleasure book.  We went to the pub.  Still more work got done.  I fell asleep meditating.  We had an incredibly yummy Easter Sunday dinner.  And yeah, there was a bit more work done too.

Rather than punishing myself with a gruelling Easter weekend at home filled with endless work and beating myself into senseless depression about what needed to be done, I packed the laptop, some good intentions and had a (shock horror) ‘balanced’ weekend. 

Did I get as much done as if I’d stayed at home, trying to pretend I wasn’t hanging out on Facebook?  As we don’t get to live parallel lives, I’ll never know.  But what I do know is that I had a happy weekend and I’ve emerged into the week contented (and probably more pleasant to be around).

And those text messages from my friends assures me that they are a lot less interested in beating me up for my social flakiness than I am.  Which tells me I could turn my internal ‘guilt-o-metre’ down and get on with booking in some time to simply hang out with my inner Italian….

Related links:

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-sweetness-of-doing-nothing/article5196529.ece

5 ways to get your creative idea funded in Bristol

Let's be honest, creative working is still assumed to be something you do for love rather than money.  After all you're just having fun so it's not really work, right?

Bristol is recognised as a creative and cultural hub and for many of us that's the very reason why we moved here in the first place.  But balancing paying the rent and giving your creative projects their all can be a real challenge.  I spoke to some of Bristol's creative community to find out what top tips they could share.

Novelist Ben Dickson says a video is a must for any
successful Kickstarter funding bid

Graphic novelist Ben Dickson has published four books and has a fifth coming out later this year.  However he is exploring the world of Kickstarter as a way of getting his book Unfinished City out there to the public.

Kickstarter is a crowd funding platform that helps people fund projects from films to stage shows, music, comics, video games and design related projects.  'Kickstarters' set up a page to ask for funding for their idea in exchange for which 'backers' receive a personalised copy of the created end product.  Each Kickstarter has a target amount they want to reach within a set period of time.  If time runs out and the funding goal is unfulfilled backers get their cash returned.

Dickson said: "We didn't want to take it directly to a publisher because it's an unusual project - it's set in Eastern Europe, it's not about superheros and it's a crime novel - which is a niche genre.  Self-funding through Kickstarter will ensure that the book is done the way we want it to be."

Read my full interview with Ben here and find out more about Unfinished City here.

"Is your work an act of self-expression or an act of communication?"

There are many routes to funding your ideas it can be hard to figure out which one is right for you.

Former BBC Head of Co-Production and Acquisition, now founder of production company Wildseed Studios Jesse Cleverly advises would-be creatives to ask themselves this tough question first: "Is your work an act of self-expression or an act of communication?"

Cleverly says having a clear answer to this question will automatically direct you in terms of where you pitch for your money: "Funding bodies and grant giving organisations are the people for an act of self expression - broadcasters and commercial production companies are the people to go for acts of communication as they are interested in making "products" that are designed to travel out into the world."

Whether your work is a heartfelt, personal piece or it's designed to cause a specific reaction on an audience 'out there' here are five routes to finding the pot of gold you're looking for:

1. Self-funding

A quick survey of Kickstarter shows that one in two Bristol projects are successful in their funding bids, so it's worth a punt.  Ben's top tip is make a video - you're unlikely to succeed without one.

2. Commercial funding

Bristol based Wildseed Studios offer an interesting model in which the creator and the company go into a commercial partnership.  You pitch your idea, they give you the money to make it. They advise, mentor, support, market, sell and monetise the content and share in the commercial success with you.

3. Grants and funding bodies

Other funding options include checking out what Bristol City Council offer and organisations such as Arts Council England. Arts Council England's South West Area Director Phil Gibby says when applying for arts funding there are a couple of obvious pointers to follow including reading the guidance carefully and seek advice of others who've written successful applications previously. He also said: "If unsuccessful, do seek constructive feedback from us - we're always happy to provide it!"

4. Socialism

Get involved in the creative community.  Bristol is a hugely helpful and friendly place.  Have a look at what venues show the sort of things you're interested in producing, follow them on Twitter and  Facebook.  Social media is a huge way that creative organisations let you know if they've got competitions or internships coming up.  I got my first paid for (yes, paid for!) script opportunity through tweeted information...

5. Think creatively

Yeah, you do this all the time I know, but what I mean here is opportunities do exist in more obscure places.  Bristol is about to be the European Green Capital next year for example but a key element of the bid is how we express that creatively as a city.

Locklease Labour councillor and spokesperson on arts and culture, Estella Tincknell (@EstellaTincknell) warns against going too far with this approach though.  She says "I'm not an expert on funding but I think it's important that you don't bend your project to fit the criteria of funders or you'll end up with a project you don't want to do!"

Right. Well then.  What are you waiting for?  Go get that money and get creating!

Related Links:
Bristol Theatre Net is the network to be hooked into if you're interested in anything theatre in Bristol
Creative Bristol is an online resource for all things art, craft and design in Bristol
Bristol Short Story Prize for the writerly types out there
Bristol Culture for news on all things cultural in Bristol

Comics, Kickstarter and Unfinished City: An interview with novelist Ben Dickson

As a kid I read any number of comics from the Beano to Misty.  No preparation for a holiday in Cornwall was complete without the pre-requisite trip to the newsagent to stock up on comic books and magazines – doubtless a desperate parental attempt at keeping things quiet and peaceful between my sister and me for the eight-hour (traffic-gods willing...) journey down to the West Country.

Last week I found myself chatting to Bristol based graphic novelist Benjamin Dickson (@beniswriting) about his latest project, Unfinished City.  The conversation has decidedly rekindled my interest in the comic medium, not least because of his decision to fund the completion of the novel through Kickstarter.

Unfinished City is a crime drama set in former Yugoslavia co-written with Sylvjia Martinovic.  Dickson and Martinovic met whilst working at Studio Upstairs in 2007.

“We were both already writers and after a couple of weeks of getting to know each other we thought ‘Shall we do something together?’  Sylvjia said ‘Let’s do a crime drama’.  She had lived in Montenegro, in a town that, rightly or wrongly, has a reputation for crime.  I was up for it because the Eastern European setting was exciting and had an exotic edge.”

After two years of working on drafts and a further two years searching to find exactly ‘the right’ artist for the book Dickson and Martinovic teamed up with Croatian illustrator Robert Solanovic.

“We both really wanted an artist from the Balkans because they would be able to give a level of visual reality to the project that other artists couldn’t – they would know what plug sockets and street signs should look like.”

Despite commercial success (Dickson has already published four graphic novels and has a fifth coming out later this year - Santa Claus vs the Nazis) the team wanted to ensure they maintained autonomy in the production of this particular book.

Dickson says: “Unfinished City is unusual because it is a crime drama, told from a female point of view, in Eastern Europe, as a graphic novel.  To the best of my knowledge, that’s never been done before.”

Dickson has been interested in exploring the Kickstarter funding model and decided this could be an interesting route for Unfinished City.

Kickstarter, for the uninitiated, is a crowdfunding platform that enables you to set a financial target that you reach through investment from people on the net who are interested in seeing your project happen.  If the goal is reached within the time set then investors will receive a copy of the item – with larger backers receiving more ornate, specialised and bespoke copies.  If the goal is not met, investments are returned and, very sadly, the project isn’t funded.

For Unfinished City the Kickstarter funding will pay for the illustration of the book and pay for hardback and paperback copies that the backers will receive.

“Kickstarter is simply a means of completing the book and getting it out there to a first audience.  Once we’re there hopefully we can do more fun things with it.”

Dickinson says: “I won’t personally see a penny of the funding!  I’ll only make money of it if we exceed the goal and/or hopefully get a foreign language edition developed – this is very much a labour of love for me!”

It will take nearly a year to produce the whole book, however it has been written as a trilogy and will be released in three 48-page instalments (as per the French ‘Bande dessinee’ model).  Dickson and the team anticipate sending out PDFs of the book to backers every time an instalment is completed which they expect will be every four months.

Despite the drop off in comic sales and interest in the nineties Dickson feels there’s been a real resurgence in interest in the past 10 – 15 years. Dickson believe we’re now living in a second golden age of comics – but this is happening in bookshops and comic shops rather than on the newsstands as it did previously.

Historically the US and UK market have been pretty different – the US literally have the market on Superheroes.  Dickson explains that UK comics have tended to be more Action-Adventure for boys and drama and romance for girls but that what is happening now in UK comic development is pushing the boundaries of the medium even further.  Whilst you still won’t find many British superheroes, Action-Adventure is joined by more arty and socio-political work in comics today.

Reading the free 20-page sample of Unfinished City there is something decidedly European about this story which promises to progress into an increasingly challenging and tough crime drama.  Dickson warns readers not to be too quick to judge the fact that hero Nadja Djurkovic is a girl.

“It makes it a far more interesting story actually.  The fact she’s a she changes they dynamics but that’s not exactly a bad thing. There’s a particular moment at the end of the first part when I asked Sylvjia what she thought would’ve happened at that particular moment if Nadja had been a man.  She said, ‘They definitely would’ve killed him’. It’s a simple as that.”

Dark indeed...

And miles to go before I sleep - Review of Almost Heaven: Travels thought the Backwoods of America

I have been travelling across North America for the past month or so - down around the South and then up and out to the West.

Well. Imaginatively speaking I have. I've been reading Almost Heaven: Travels through the Backwoods of America by journalist Martin Fletcher.

As a child I was fascinated by the USA and absolutely desperate to live there.  I stumbled across some stories a while ago that I'd written in Primary School which I'd set in the States.  Upon re-reading them I found had no idea where the places I named actually were. To be honest I assumed I'd made them up but some quick googling showed my childhood geography of the USA to be accurate, if not a little obscure.

As an adult I've travelled to North America a few times. Despite fears that my childhood crush may have been misplaced my visits have never been anything but awesome and awe-inspiring.  Right now I'm too poor and too busy with my studies to even contemplate making any transatlantic journeys so a bit of armchair travelling with Fletcher seemed like a reasonable substitute.

As the title suggests Fletcher is captivated by the more obscure and geographically remote places in the US.  He tells of Appalachian snake handlers who believe they live or die in their handling of venomous snakes by the will of god; he hangs out with a Cajun fur trapper and visits an alligator farm in Louisiana.  He goes to Texarkana - a town that straddles the Texas-Arkansas border and therefore, amusingly, has to have two of everything - two mayors, two councils, two police forces, two fire services, two court systems...

He tells of American communities that I'd never heard of before such as the Gullahs in South Carolina - descendants of freed slaves who bought land just after the Civil War and are still singing songs that can be traced back to a village in Sierra Leone. He meets Melungeons, a community of people who may be descended from original 16th century Portuguese settlers and visits towns like Muenster in Texas where German is still the first language for many of the older inhabitants.

I think for any traveller there is a sense that once you've been to a place a part of you belongs to it; you have a sense of connection that comes from having walked the roads and spent time with the people there. I know this is how I feel about the USA and in some senses I guess I looked to the book to confirm my belief about the America I have experienced and loved.

And Fletcher doesn't disappoint.  He tells tales of America and Americans that I recognise, of people and places that are impressive in their ingenuity and their eccentricity.  He does not however refrain from also showing the less flattering side of American society.

Threaded throughout the book is commentary and discussion about racism. Fletcher visits 'The World's Only Ku Klux Klan museum' and 'Redneck Shop' in South Carolina. He finds that Greene County in Alabama is 'in practical terms, as segregated now as it was in the 1950s. Blacks and whites live side by side but seldom mix.'  He meets Clarence Bradley who was wrongfully arrested and tried for the rape of a white girl in 1980. Fletcher describes the affair as the closest thing to a 'legal lynching' and believes it 'reveals the darkness that still lurks behind the peaceful and pleasant facades of some small American towns'.

Fletcher ends his journey near as damn-it in Idaho which is the childhood home of one of my very best friends and a place I've visited on a couple of occasions.  I saved the chapter because I wanted to savour going back there in my mind. The Idaho I am most familiar with, that I would most call home-from-home is a place of hippies and off-griders, people who are independent spirits and Fletcher does deliver some of that in this chapter.

However what I always forget about Idaho is that it is also home to the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and its political arm the Aryan Nations.  This penultimate chapter then was not necessarily the comforting read I was hoping for.

Fletcher undertook his journey in 1997 which is on the one hand a long time ago.  Recently we've been reminded in the UK of the institutional racism inherent in our police system that was uncovered by the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993.  But I can remember 1997.  I can remember 1993. It all seems too recent for such out-dated and out-moded views to have persisted even then.

As perhaps all great journeys tend to do, Almost Heaven challenged my view of a place that I am fond of and feel connected to and reminded me that none of us, wherever we are in the world, can rest easy in the belief that bigotry is a thing of the past. Whilst at times the roads we travel may feel almost heaven, the truth is that we are, sadly, still very far from any kind of equitable Eden.

Behind the scenes at the Bristol Improv Festival

Highlights from interviews with the Festival directors Andrew Yeoh and Nathan Keates and with Impromtu Shakespeare earlier this week at tech rehearsals at the Bierkeller Theatre.




 And a 'newsy' piece for UWE MA Journalism Multimedia news day:

 

Mayor presents BTA contributors with copies of book celebrating 25 years of friendship between Bristol and Tbilisi

First published on the Bristol Tbilisi Association website.

The Acting Mayor of Tbilisi, Sevdia Ugrekhelidze, celebrated the publication of Tbilisi City Council commissioned book on Saturday 8 March with a presentation ceremony at the Colston Hall in Bristol.

The book ‘A Bridge of Friendship – Between Mtkvari and Avon’ is filled with the personal stories of a number of people who have been involved in twinning links between Bristol and Tbilisi.

At the presentation the mayor met with a number of people who have contributed both to the relationship between the two cities over the past 25 years and to the content of the book.

Speaking to the group Mayor Ugrekhelidze said: “The most important thing is the friendship between the citizens of these cities.....the personal relationships are the spirit and soul of the connection. It is very hard for any book to adequately reflect such friendship.”

The mayor explained the book is an attempt to catalogue the projects and initiatives between the two cities over the past 25 years.

She said: “I was personally keen to meet all the people involved in twinning links between Bristol and Tbilisi. The book is as a result of the contributions of all of you present and a number of other people who could not be with us today.”

Mayor Ugrekhelidze highlighted the work of Professor Henry Parry and Paul Garland. She described them as: “pioneers....who laid the solid foundation for what has become a 25 year long relationship.”

The mayor concluded: “My hope is for many more good pages and chapters to be added to this friendship in the future.”

The book presentation occurred after a busy couple of days in which the Tbilisi delegation had met with, amongst others, Bristol elected Mayor George Ferguson. Ferguson has said he is very enthused about the relationship and has in principle committed to a return trip in October to Tbilisi when the city hosts their own jazz festival.

The delegation met with Andrew Kelly Director of the Bristol Festival ideas and John Hirst Chief Executive of Destination Bristol as well as key people involved in the Harbour Festival, Balloon Festival and the Arts Council. Ideas were shared and discussed about potential cultural and economic collaborations between organisations in Bristol and Tbilisi.

Mayor Ugrekhelidze’s words were translated by Nino Beglarishvili, Chief Officer of the Department of International Relations in Tbilisi’s City Hall.

Story by Rebecca Megson

The News Minute//Vacancy: Poet Laureate wanted for tuberculosis

Just recording the piece I had published www.thenewsminute.com in February on the blog.

http://www.thenewsminute.com/stories/Vacancy:%20Poet%20Laureate%20wanted%20for%20tuberculosis#.UxdLfyh94aK

London, one of the world’s leading financial and cultural centres, is also known as the ‘tuberculosis capital of Europe’.

You may already know this, however it is a piece of health information that I like to pass on to as many people as possible.

I’ll be honest, I’m not doing this as a way of performing a sort of personal public health service, at least not in the first instance. What I’m looking for is a level of knowledge or awareness in the people around me.

What I get, repeatedly, is surprise.

Yet the description of London as the ‘tuberculosis capital of Europe’ dates back as far as December 2010 and, a brief Google search reveals, it has been used in UK headlines ever since.TB in badgers is more talked about in the UK than TB in humans, though the human version is on a par with HIV and Malaria as one of the top killers in the world.

Historically TB is thought to be one of the oldest diseases we have – with human bones from as far back as the Neolithic era containing traces of the bacteria. It was rampant in the UK in the 18th and 19th Century, across all classes of people including doctors and poets, giving it something of a Romantic reputation.

Advances in the development of a vaccination and antibiotic treatment of TB has enabled the UK to become complacent about a disease that for most people is now consigned to the history books. As Head of TB Surveillance for Public Health England, Dr Lucy Thomas says: “TB is a preventable and treatable condition” which is only life-threatening if untreated.

And yet. There are nearly 9,000 reported cases of TB in the UK. Whilst the latest report from Public Health England (PHE) shows that rates of TB have stabilised the number of cases is still significantly higher than the rest of Western Europe.

It is a disease these days of the dispossessed. Despite the mythology that all British cases are imported the UK Government state that eight out of ten Londoners with tuberculosis in 2012 were UK-born or had been living in the UK for at least 2 years prior to their diagnosis.

Those infected with TB are however likely to be living on the streets where a persistent cough, night sweats and weight loss are low priority on their list of concerns. Identifying people with the disease is hard enough, ensuring they complete the minimum 6 month course of treatment required is a challenge; knowing who else they have been in contact with is nigh on impossible.

Let’s be clear on a few things here. The nearly 9,000 reported cases of tuberculosis in the UK is tiny when you consider the global picture of 8.6 million new TB cases worldwide in 2012.But the latest, ugliest monster in the global village is the development of new, drug resistant strains of the disease. We’re not staring down the barrel of an epidemic right now in the UK but as MP Andrew George says “TB does not respect borders, and drug-resistant strains of TB pose a major risk to the health of the British people.”

TB was once a disease that we believed we could wipe out completely by the 1980s. Quietly, however, it has crept back into our dark, unseen and unloved corners, where poetry is not, as yet, to be found.